Black Women Finally Get Their Due

Reviewed by Susan Faust

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, December 31, 2000

Ageneration ago, there were but a handful of biographies about American women. The women were all dead and mostly white. A course correction has been under way in recent years, and, this season, African American women are getting their due in striking books that say a lot about diversity and division in our society.

Starting at the beginning, TITUBA, by William Miller and illustrated by Leonard Jenkins (Harcourt; 32 pages; $16; ages 6-9), is closely associated with colonial New England's own trial of the century. For those in need of reminder, Tituba was among the accused in the Salem witch trials of 1692.

Miller develops his story with little to go on. It is known that Tituba was a slave all her life, first in Barbados and then New England, and that she took the stand with her master's daughters. What Miller can't document, he imagines -- how Tituba felt about her homeland, her new home and her circumstances.

The result is, according to an author's note, "a creative attempt to tell her story." And therein lies the problem: There is an uncomfortable blurring of fact and fiction. As for the narrative, it is lyrical, with references to West Indian flora, fauna and folkways, and the multimedia art is edgy and expressive, especially the portrait of an anguished Tituba in the hold of a ship.

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More historically grounded is ONLY PASSING THROUGH: The Story of Sojourner Truth, by Anne Rockwell and illustrated by Gregory Christie (Knopf; 32 pages; $16.95; ages 7-10). Well known for her tidy books for very young children, Rockwell turns to something completely different. She relies heavily on Sojourner Truth's autobiography to craft a serious-minded introduction to the famed Northern slave, at first named Isabella, who became a stalwart abolitionist.

How Isabella fought for her son's freedom in a New York court, found her calling in a dream and took a new name to fit her mission makes for an immensely moving read. Rockwell takes the story only through Sojourner Truth's transformation, alluding to what comes after in an intriguing end-note. (Truth eventually works alongside the elite of both the abolitionist and women's rights crusades.)

In boldly discordant paintings, Sojourner Truth's elongated figure and piercing face make for an artful character study. The flat background scenes embody both good and evil. In total, the package is strong like its subject.

Born into a family of well-connected civil rights activists, Pinkney pays homage to these "sheroes . . . whose praises have not been sung loudly enough. " The portraits are positive, all pro and no con, with hard lives and good works laid out in lively and vivid prose, perfect for reading aloud.

Of Sojourner Truth, Pinkney writes, "When the good Lord was handing out the gift of conviction, he gave a hefty dose to Sojourner Truth." And of California's Biddy Mason, Pinkney suggests that if she were alive today, "we'd call her a mover and shaker. A history maker. One high-powered lady."

Alcorn's oils are lively and vivid with symbolism. Voter registration worker Fannie Lou Hamer is set against a sky of ballots, and 1972 presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm is shown climbing a ladder to the White House.

That reverential tone is nowhere to be found in OSCEOLA: Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter, collected and edited by Alan Govenar and illustrated by Shane W. Evans (Hyperion; 64 pages; $15.99; ages 8-12). Perhaps that's because it's oral history, honest and homespun, nearly unfiltered and completely unadorned.

Govenar worked from interviews and conversations he had with Osceola Mays over the last 15 years, faithfully preserving her storytelling style. She was born in 1909, and her memories make for a compelling record of childhood in one small Texas town. Her memories all point in the same direction, showing how poverty and prejudice were pervasive and mostly decisive.

Poignant indeed are Osceola's vignettes: being afraid of the white postman, working for white folks from age 9, hearing stories about slavery from her grandmother, celebrating Juneteenth and watching her mother die after childbirth. Included too are lengthy poems and songs meaningful to Osceola. They add authenticity but, on paper, they interrupt the conversational flow.

Evans provides warm paintings to underscore the themes Osceola naturally develops in her story, themes of loneliness and community, of dignity and discrimination. Like other oral histories ("Leon's Story" by Leon Tillage is a favorite), "Osceola" lets kids dip into primary source material and, through it, better understand ordinary people and their times.@bx